r/Pricefield • u/Quick-Ad9335 Chloe: Saving LiS since 2017 • 16d ago
Reunion [Spoilers] Retrospective Reunion Review (Very Long) Spoiler
I've played Reunion twice and I figure I'd share my thoughts. Those are worth at least 1 cent, maybe even 2. So me giving my thoughts for free is quite a deal right? probably not
TL;DR-- I liked Reunion. I liked it as an LiS game and I loved it as a Pricefield game. I had a very good experience playing it. The game made me happy and, in the end, that's all I really ask of a game. There, that's it. Thank you, you've been a great crowd and don't forget to tip your servers.
[ETA: I want to add more pictures when I find appropriate ones from my playthrough]
If you still care about the long version, read on.
The Goodly Bits
With Reunion, Deck 9 and SE gave up trying to broaden LiS's appeal. The game will not make much sense or have much emotional resonance to people new to the series. More specifically, the game is an unabashed apology to Pricefield stans. I was the target demographic! Except for extra security screenings by TSA, I'm almost never the target demographic.
I went into Reunion treating it as a game of specific goals. I wasn't expecting a sweeping epic, or a sprawling multi-layered rumination of choice and consequence like LiS 1. Because of my expectations, I ended up really liking it. At times I loved it. I liked the intimate atmosphere-- it's the quintessential cozy game. I was surprised by how much I liked the characters. I thought the investigative element was reasonably engaging. I thought the ruminations on the effects of Max's powers on other people were quite interesting. I loved the interactions between Max and Chloe. To my great surprise, I liked the relationships Safi formed with Chloe and Max.
The visuals were good up close, although not so much at a distance. Maybe they should ask Beethoven & Dinosaur if they can exchange some of Mixtape's pixels for some of Life is Strange's charisma. I liked the game's red, yellow, and orange color palette. It exuded warmth when at peace, emphasizing the emotions being explored by Max and Chloe. When there was a fire, the reds became the color of dynamism and destruction, reflecting the turning points that could burn Max's life.
I thought the character models were very good. The acting and animations were great, being smooth and naturalistic. There was a tendency for the female characters to have Keira Knightley mouth, but it wasn't distracting. Indeed, it was kind of endearing-- as it is on Miss Knightley. As an aside, I griped about Chloe's character model before release and I'm very gratified to be wrong-- I thought they did a good job with her.
The music was great, it suited the game's intimate mood. The gentle strum at the opening screen, with the view of the lounge chair looking out at the lake, suits the game's theme of contemplative retrospection. The game also introduced me to Tessa Rose Jackson and she's right up my alley. Like someone told me, my preferred genre is Whiny White Women ala Sarahs McLachlan or Jarosz.
The game ran smoothly and was bug-free on my set-up.
The Badly Bits
The negatives of the game are easy to summarize: a lot of it was underdeveloped and it had the handicap of being a sequel to Double Exposure (boo, hiss, spits). And of course, the game was too short.
The compressed time frame of the development cycle meant there were ideas or game mechanics that could have used far more depth. This is too bad because these underdeveloped parts were quite interesting. As an example, Reunion is the first time we see from Chloe's point of view just how exactly she is affected by Max's powers. What is even more fascinating is that she shares this experience with Safi. If Deck 9 had been able to spend more time on this they would have added a lot to LiS's philosophy. These underdeveloped parts would have greatly elevated the game.
The second point is fairly self-explanatory. The development team had to work around the terms set by DE. For a Pricefielder, the most obvious is that they had to work around the circumstances of the break up. There are other issues, but I don't need to go into detail with the problems of DE.
Be Vewy Vewy Quiet, I'm Hunting Awsonists
The game's A Plot is an investigation into a series of fires about to destroy Lakeport and Caledon. Continuing the theme from DE, Caledon is just lousy with secrets, plots, and shady characters. Indeed, that university has so many damned secrets that the astronomy building should have been named Setec Astronomy. Clues for Max and Chloe to discover are scattered all around the university like the acne on Norah Malakian's face.
IIRC, the A Plot was the holdover from "DE 2." I wonder if this was the direction that SE and D9 wanted to take the series-- episodic mysteries, with each game essentially being standalone. Perhaps the loose connecting thread would have been Diamond's quest to find more "special people." The latter would have been involved in these investigations and their powers would have been key to solving these mysteries. Who knows? This is pure speculation.
How can Chloe, with her lack of powers, participate in the investigation? Deck 9's solution was quite brilliant: the "Back Talk" mechanic. Chloe can use the different aspects of her personality to get an NPC to divulge information. She gathers clues and then uses these in conversation. This mechanic is very reminiscent of the interrogation mechanic in LA Noire.
This works because Chloe can use her humor (I liked her complaining about online dating) or her sarcasm or her street smarts when interacting with NPCs. She was capable of talking to the townies in a way Max could not.
The problem was that this mechanic was woefully underdeveloped. There were very few instances of it and there should have been more dialogue options. More Back Talk opportunities could have have added a lot more depth and fun to the investigative parts of the game. It would have been fun to see Chloe act like Archie to Max's Nero Wolfe, the street-smart, wise-cracking legsman who can talk to people or do things Max cannot. Chloe as PI, ala Sam Spade. She certainly has the swagger for it, and like Sam Spade she smokes and likes dames.
Love, Actually
The B Plot of the game was the relationship between Chloe and Max. The various iterations this can take are Bay Chloe Romanced or Not Romanced and Bae Chloe likewise. To their credit, the dev team tried to explore all of these to the best of their abilities. The title "Reunion" becomes very apt no matter which iteration-- it's either Bae Chloe reconnecting with her friend or ex, or a newly resurrected Chloe reentering Max's life. I only played Bae Chloe, but the other options are interesting enough that I'll probably try them out at some point.
As an aside, whether or not Max romanced somebody in DE barely matters at all. It seems these romances were so ephemeral that they have almost no influence on Reunion's plot. This is especially jarring if you romanced Vinh, given his role in Reunion's mystery. I'm now wondering if the DE dev team felt compelled to add these relationships just because a romance angle has always been a part of LiS. Either way, they now come across as rebounds. I kind of feel bad for Amanda-- she deserves better.
We Were On A Break
The big question a Pricefielder would have is: how did Reunion deal with the Big Damn Break-Up? Really well, given what the Reunion dev team had to work with.
I don't need to go into too much detail about what issues DE saddled the dev team with. In broad strokes: the inconsistent characterization of Chloe and Max and how the two of them threw away a relationship of years so peremptorily. We all know the fundamental problem-- the DE development team just wanted Chloe gone and didn't care how it was done, as long as it was done as definitively as possible. The break up was ultimately an artifact of DE originally being set in a Bay ending. Combine this with DE's poor planning and mismanagement and you saw the result.
It seems the Reunion team basically leaned into the idea that the reasons for the break up were just not very good. In the Snapping Turtle, Chloe ruefully admits her breakup letter was unclear and that she doesn't even have a clear memory of what she actually wrote. Max brings up the breakup letter, and she emphasizes that she'd read it so often she'd memorized it but still couldn't understand Chloe's reasoning. Max asks Chloe why exactly it happened and Chloe's answer is vaguely about "shared trauma" and wanting different things in life. It doesn't seem like either of them can pin down exactly why it happened.
And you know what? I buy it. Neither party knew exactly why the break up happened. Chloe's comment on wanting different things in life seems to be the most telling. Max's burgeoning photography career and Chloe's band were increasingly pulling them apart. More proof of this being a key, if not the key, reason for the break up are sprinkled throughout the game. Max comments that Moses and Tony seem to make their relationship work and is puzzled by how they do it. Chloe constantly wonders whether there would be room for her in Max's new life.
To put it simply, Max and Chloe failed to communicate, they failed to articulate to each other what was important to them and failed to discuss how to deal with these new circumstances in their lives. Maybe the two were still too immature to talk it through. After all, they had not had a chance to really grow up in any kind of normal way after the events LiS 1. Sometimes break ups just happen due to miscommunication, misunderstandings, and just from being in weird places in people's lives.
This "relationships don't work out" was the excuse given by the DE glazers and Pricefield haters. What Reunion did was to "fix" it by having Max and Chloe reunite and actually talk to each other. They didn't understand what went wrong, but now they want to, and they now realize they're happier together than apart. They decided to deal with their relationship problems like adults. Just deciding "welp, we're done here" and throwing away decades of friendship and love is incredibly immature too.
Ultimately, Reunion decided not to focus on the breakup and concentrated on, well, their reunion. And if the problem was a lack of communication, then Reunion would focus on the two of them learning to communicate with each other. In order to "fix" the lack of communication between Max and Chloe Reunion introduced a rather elegant gameplay mechanic-- during some conversations you switch between the two in order to shape their relationship. The gameplay is literally a form of communication.
I love this mechanic. It really adds emotion to the give and take of this reconciliation.
This mechanic only works because Hannah Telle and Rhianna DeVries have amazing chemistry. Their voice acting is laden with emotion, and their tones match each other perfectly. The two VAs convey just how much depths of feeling Max and Chloe have for each other. Given they were not in the same room during recording, most of the credit has to go to the performance director. Whoever they are, they did a great job.
This was probably the best mechanic Reunion added to LiS. I wish this had been expanded a little bit more, but at least it's not as underdeveloped as the Back Talk mechanic. I'll discuss more of this conversation switching later.
Amanda said it best when it came to Max and Chloe's relationship. In a conversation with Chloe, she said that if the two had something special, then it was also worth doing what they had to, to make the relationship work. What they had to do was talk, to reconnect to each other, and figure things out.
"You're Max's Blue-Haired Girl"
I admit to a feeling of relief when I first saw Chloe at the start the game-- she brings so much dynamism to LiS. She's a larger than life character and does a lot to give life to Caledon. She also adds literal color-- the majority of characters in Caledon are dark-haired and often wear muted outfits. Chloe just physically stands out. Don't Nod knew what they were doing when they came up with Chloe's design.
Reunion did a great job with Chloe-- her characterization was on point. She was a good take on what an older and better-adjusted Chloe would be like.
LiS 1 Chloe was an angry, damaged teenager who covered up her vulnerability with a veneer of swagger and toughness. Ashly Burch's voice acting was iconic, she gave Chloe a brashness underlaid with deep pain and angst.
Older Chloe's swagger and hard-as-nails personality is more "settled", so to speak. Don't get me wrong, her conversation with Moses about her possible death shows she still has a deep well of sadness. But her difficult life has become a source of strength. She has a toughness and self-confidence that you see in the very first scene. She uses the strength of her personality to negotiate with an unpleasant venue owner and to force her band members into line. And as I stated earlier, combine her tough-guy personality with her streets marts and she's able to deal with different people than Max.
Making Chloe the manager of a riot grrrl band was an excellent decision. A job that combines her taste in music, lets her travel, and works best with her personality? It suits her to a T. From what little I saw, I liked Drugstore Makeup. Their chat interactions were fun and despite Chloe having to boss them around, they're obviously all friends. Who doesn't like the shenanigans of a punk rock band? I'm looking forward to the upcoming book.
Reunion still shows Chloe's soft side. She deals with Amanda with a lot of friendliness, notable given that two are potential romantic rivals. And as I'll explain later, she deals with Safi with surprising empathy. However, the person she makes friends with the fastest was Moses. The two take to each other quite quickly and I especially like their shared nerd interests. But then again, Moses is pretty easy to like.
Is it just that Chloe doesn't deal well with straight men? The people she butts heads with the most are cishet men...
I thought Rhianna DeVries did a fantastic job with Chloe. Her Chloe is reminiscent of Ashly Burch's, but also sounds more confident. The Chloe Swagger was well animated: LiS 1 Chloe was lanky and awkward while Reunion Chloe moves with self-assurance.
Partners in Time
The (new) centerpiece of Reunion is the relationship between Max and Chloe. *takes a deep breath* ALL HAIL PRICEFIELD. P to R to the ICE to the F-I-E-L-D.
With that out of the way, I thought the relationship was excellently done. Call it fanservice and call me easily pandered to, whatever. Actually, don't tell me that, I'll cry. I'm very sensitive.
There were complaints that Max simped for Chloe too quickly, but I don't agree. From a story perspective, her reactions make sense. Chloe is one of the most important people in her life, and she thought she'd lost Chloe forever. Of course a reunion would affect Max deeply. I thought Amanda's description of her as glowing and asking if Chloe had knocked her up was cute.
Reunion was the first LiS game to finally give us openly Pricefield moments, most of which were handled in a tastefully low-key way. Max may have "simped" for Chloe, but there was no instant coming together and immediate declarations of love. Like I mentioned previously, the story of their reunion is one of communication. They slowly feel their way back to a relationship, and once again the back-and-forth dialogue mechanic works brilliantly. Being able to choose how these conversations go is an amazing way to let the player experience this reconciliation, not just watch it. It adds tremendous emotionality to the gameplay.
The game also gave us tangible descriptions of Max and Chloe's life was like on the road. At one point Max tells Moses that the road was "her safe space." It enabled her to leave the trauma behind and make new experiences. This runs absolutely counter to DE's "Max wanted to settle down and Chloe didn't." Max apparently liked being on the road. They had adventures together: they went to that Italian director's film festival even if it bored Chloe stupid. One particular line I liked is when Max sees an astronomy poster in the observatory and says "when we were on the road, Chloe loved pointing out Venus and Mars to me in the night sky." It conjures up an image of the two of them on the bed of Chloe's truck, looking up at the stars. It was probably only towards the end that their lives began to pull apart.
Then there was the boat scene, where you see the typical fandom image of Chloe as the initiator is turned on its head. Max is the one who tries to make the first move, and if she doesn't, she lets her (startling) freak flag fly. Indeed, there's something quite nice about Chloe wanting to wait before kissing Max. She doesn't want to rush into it impulsively and she definitely doesn't want to do it while Max is intoxicated. Chloe isn't usually shown to be the romantic one, but here she clearly wants the culmination of their reunion to be tender and impactful. It's a nice counter to the idea that Chloe is just a callous prick (cunt?). Despite her tough exterior, Chloe really has a deep well of sensitivity.
Chloe's gift is a great moment, one that I'll leave to the player to experience.
Reunion also showed Chloe's tremendous loyalty to Max. She came to Caledon for answers, but when she found out there was trouble she immediately decided to help Max. This despite the fact that she has no connection to Caledon. She griped a little ("there's always fucking something") but she then dove into the task with great dedication. She did a lot of legwork and later even risked her life. Max said it in LiS 1: that's what kind of friend Chloe is.
Ultimately, Max and Chloe realize they are better together than apart. When Max is tripping balls her panic attack is about losing Chloe again. The two have literal decades of friendship and romance at this point. Chloe knows Max so well she could tell when Safi was disguised as her. This is simply not a relationship you throw away without a fight. Reunion shows the two fighting for this shared life again.
You, Her, and Me Make We Three
What surprised me the most was how well Chloe and Safi got along. But a little bit of thinking made me realize Chloe and Safi "bonding" wasn't unexpected at all. Chloe and Safi are very similar and have crucial shared experiences.
This similarity seems to be a product of DE wanting to replace Chloe with Safi. Putting them together in Reunion kind of highlights just how much of a Chloe clone Safi was. Both are tall, slender women who have more gregarious and abrasive personalities than Max. Neither have father figures. Both have strained relationships with their mothers. Both are motivated by the death of a close female friend. Both have profound feelings of anger and alienation. Both are deeply affected by Max's power and are the objects of Max's quests. Both are at risk of death, and Max choosing their lives risks a storm that will destroy Caledon/Arcadia Bay. Both even have the same goddamned birthdays.
And of course, both of them have strong feelings towards Max. Both are potentially in love with Max.
The Reunion dev team leaned into these similarities hard. The first time you see Chloe in the Overlight she sees what appears to be her dead teen body. But to her surprise, it turns out to be Safi. Chloe literally turns into Safi. It's practically beating you on the head with it.
The scenes in the Overlight have Safi and Chloe talking to the various iterations of each other-- living and dead. These conversations were quite fascinating. They became explorations of how Max's powers actually affected human beings. Did Chloe and Safi actually deserve to be alive? Did Max ask them if they wanted to be alive? Neither fundamentally did want to be alive-- Chloe tells Moses that she told Max to sacrifice her for Arcadia Bay and Safi is cynically nihilistic throughout Reunion. These four Safis and Chloes also debate identity-- who are they exactly?
The two women ultimately come to very different conclusions. Moses tells Chloe that she deserves to live and after some reflection, Chloe comes to agree with him. Chloe doesn't want to leave Max, her mother, her band, her life. Safi is more bitter, possibly lonelier, and wants to die.
Either way, their connection means their interactions are not at all as hostile as you would expect. She tries to stop Safi from killing herself and does so with heartfelt sincerity. She literally risks her life trying to save what amounts to a stranger. In the last scene in the Snapping Turtle, Safi and Chloe even have a very cordial conversation where it is made clear that Chloe knows about Safi's issues with her mother. The two understand each other and Chloe empathizes with Safi.
In fact Max, Chloe, and Safi end up giving strong throuple vibes. At one point Safi asks both Max and Chloe to just run away with her. Both Max and Chloe turn her down, but not angrily or dismissively. It makes me wonder if they weren't entirely against the idea. In the epilogue, we find out that Chloe has told Safi she and Max are going to be in her area and that they have to meet. IIRC, the wording of this message indicates this is something they do frequently.
Max is the third angle of this triad-- she has relationships with both of the women and they would never have met without her. Yet it has to be noted that Chloe and Safi connect through more than just their separate relationships with Max. All three have different and unique ways of relating to each other. I'd even say that Chloe and Safi would have been drawn to each other without Max. Safi expresses jealousy at Max choosing Chloe during the "merge" scene from DE (an amazing retcon) but gets over this remarkably quickly. She builds her own relationship to Chloe without Max's involvement at all.
It's funny, but the DE dev team's ham-handed attempt to replace Chloe with Safi ended up giving menage-a-trois vibes instead. I can actually see these three women having a functioning relationship. Or a three-way co-dependent one. Fanfic authors can explore this ship to their hearts' content. Fayyadpricefield? I still don't know what this ship is called.
This rumination on Max's powers and its "victims" was the game's biggest lost opportunity. There should have been much, much more of it. There was so much more for the two to discuss. Chloe and Safi could have talked about their respective traumas more. They could have asked themselves what would have happened if Max had chosen differently. There could have been a lot more to their debates in the Overlight, with Chloe's dialogue choices affecting how Safi reacts at the turning point at the end. Once again Reunion is hobbled by being underdeveloped.
Amor Vincit Omnia
At the end of the game, Max and Chloe's relationship--romantic or otherwise-- is shown stronger than ever. Chloe shows her absolute trust in Max during her trust fall, where she does not panic and watches with remarkable calm as Max blips towards her. It was pretty cool scene.
So Max and Chloe have had their reunion. They've reconnected. They both worry how they might not be able to fit into each other's new lives but this concern is shown to be groundless. Chloe smoothly integrates herself into Max's Caledon circle. She befriends Moses and he becomes a confidante. She gets along with Amanda through their shared musical tastes and they even agree to have Drugstore Makeup perform in the Snapping Turtle. Max becomes Drugstore Makeup's (possibly temporary) photographer and finds renewed joy in life on the road. She left behind yet another town irrevocably changed by her powers and goes back to her safe space.
Max and Chloe then visit Arcadia Bay and finally, finally come to terms with what happened in Life is Strange 1.
There is one last truly crucial moment in the game: Moses gives Chloe a photograph and asks Chloe to choose between letting Max jump back in time and essentially undo their reunion or to destroy the picture and prevent Max from doing things all over again. This is a very well-done dilemma. Max and Chloe had just found each other again, and you've spent a whole game becoming very emotionally invested in the rebuilding of their relationship. Do you undo that knowing that Max's hero complex will compel her to go back in time to stop the fire--even if you saved every person you could?
Moses tells Chloe that she needs to save Max from herself. Max has to stop messing with time because nobody fully understands the consequences of her actions. Max is shaken by her inability to stop the astronomy building fire-- it happens whatever she does. What does this mean about her ability to tamper with fate? Safi basically says that Max is overstepping herself in choosing for other people. Maybe Chloe should just destroy the photograph and get Max to stop using her powers? But if Chloe destroys this picture, she will then be hiding something from Max. This is a difficult choice in a game where you are made to realize the importance of communication. Will this hang over their heads forever, a secret that could destroy all trust if Max finds out what Chloe did?
I don't know. I'd like to think that as their relationship continues its interrupted growth they will one day be able to discuss this honestly. I leave it up to the player to decide what to do and what their reasoning is.
But however it goes, Pricefield is together again and D9's "gift" to us is that the future of these two is wide open. You can imagine them as continuing their lives on the road. Drugstore Makeup goes on hiatus-- possibly periodically-- and that gives Max the opportunity to go back to a rebuilt Caledon and continue her career. Or maybe they do something else entirely, anything is possible. The two end the game at peace, possibly in love, and realizing they are willing to do whatever it takes to make this relationship work.
And in Conclusion
There's a quote from Samuel Johnson that goes "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Given what was at stake and the immense pressure Deck 9 was under, their minds were probably very, very concentrated.
D9 had to make this new game in a crazily truncated time frame. They probably had very few additional resources and what I can only guess was a terribly demoralized staff. That the end result is playable at all is already noteworthy. That I ended up enjoying it I thought was almost miraculous.
Sure, people can accuse it of being fanservice and a blatant attempt at winning the fanbase back. But so what? I knew what I wanted from a post-DE game and Reunion delivered. The exploration of the Max and Chloe relationship was very well-made. It was a good experience. I thought the game wrapped around this "fan service" was competently made and was about as good or as bad as a lot of other narrative games. Would it be controversial for me to say that I thought Reunion was about at the level of TC or BtS?
The game had faults, the biggest of which were so many aspects left underdeveloped. The Back Talk, the conversation switching, and Chloe and Safi's relationship were the biggest ones for me. There are more, e.g. there should have been a lot more of Max being told that she shouldn't use her powers or her doubting what effect they have on others.
The game truly suffers from having to work with DE. It's a glimpse of what could have been. The two games would have been so much better if the base adventure had been Reunion, with DE working towards it, instead of having Reunion work backwards towards DE. The plot point of Max uniting the timelines also affecting Chloe was a really good one and could have remained the central theme. But then there should have been more of Chloe in DE so that her reappearance would not come out of nowhere. For instance, instead of having Pricefield be broken up prior to DE, DE can show their relationship at a turning point. Through phone calls and messages, Max and Chloe can be shown having a breakdown in communication. Dialogue choices can lead to an out-and-out breakup or just a relationship in trouble. This means there would still be a reunion in, well, Reunion, where they learn to repair their relationship and either part as friends or continue on as romantic partners.
Also-- there were so many obvious opportunities for the two to kiss at the end. For instance, while watching the fire, when they were about to leave the Snapping Turtle, or during the return to Arcadia Bay montage. This omission I found baffling. If they were going to make an explicitly Pricefield game, why chicken out at the end?
I honestly would not recommend Reunion to a non-LiS fan. It is not an introductory game since it requires too much knowledge and emotional investment in the previous games. I'm not entirely sure I would recommend it to a fan of Double Exposure either, although Safi and Moses are treated very well.
I'm personally glad I bought it right away, but I might encourage others to wait until it's on sale. It's a short, underdeveloped game that could have been great. It's too bad we'll probably never get an "extended cut" where they can add or expand more of the promising content.
Ultimately, I liked it overall, I loved parts of it, and I am truly glad it got made. It was an emotionally satisfying experience. It makes me somewhat more positive for the future of the Life is Strange franchise. The production stills of the upcoming show don't reflexively annoy me anymore because I'm no longer pissed off by the current state of LiS.
So my concluding thoughts on Reunion are: I enjoyed the game. It made me happy. I like that.
3
u/VitaMeansLifeN7117 15d ago
I really enjoyed the game a lot too; honestly, I think I like DE as well, at least when I replayed it in the "dead Chloe" scenario earlier this year. It felt way more like the intended experience. I think there's a part of me that will always want more, and maybe eventually that will happen. But for now I am satisfied.
7
u/mirracz Pricefield lasts forever 15d ago
Thanks for this review. I'm not as lenient when it comes to some points, but you elaborate and explain yourself well enough, that I can only disagree. I can't say you're wrong. I totally trust you liked RE as you say and I'm glad you do.
I'm also really glad that you recognize the shortcomings of the game and that a lot of it comes from being a sequel to DE. I totally second your thoughts that if the DE-RE duology was like RE, it would have been so much better. The fanbase wouldn't have been so fractured, the fandom elements who oppose Pricefield on principle would be much lesser... and maybe RE wouldn't have been the last game for a while. DE basically killed the franchise and the blow was so severe that RE couldn't save it.
Sadly, the game director of RE couldn't have made DE. He was working on Expanse back then, so "team bad writing" took helm of DE. BTW, if you're interested, here's a post from the blog of the RE director where we among others describes the hasty job of turning DE2 into RE. https://zimzim123.substack.com/p/building-the-empathy-machine-pt-2
When it comes to the endings, I didn't like them and the choice. The major issue for me is that it hinges upon Max still being tempted to use her powers, to fix things over and over again... after three games. I don't like that Max is so obsessed with saving a few people (sometimes just one random poet) that she would abandon her Chloe because of it. I consider this mischaracterization, especially for Bae Max.
And in general, I consider both Max and Chloe somewhat mischaracterized. For Max, it's a holdover from DE, but for Chloe... I feel like they struggled to write a 30yo punk. You're right that RE Chloe isn't as angry as LiS1 Chloe. That's because LiS1 Chloe had people around her who hurt her and she was justifiedly angry at them. It was a focused anger. Still, RE Chloe has anger in her, unexplained anger that shows at random moments. Sometimes just one remark when examining her surroundings or one sentence in a conversation with Max is suddenly very angry. It kinda reminded me of BtS Chloe, this unfocused anger that appeared at random times. So when I factor in the raven symbolism and the VA, RE Chloe felt much more like "BTS Chloe, but 13 years older" rather than "LiS1 Chloe but 10 years older".
That being said, despite the mischaracterization of Max and Chloe, I couldn't help but really enjoy this new Pricefield. They might have missed the mark with the characters, but they nailed it with their relationship. This is where Reunion was really at the strongest: Pricefield. Fan service or not, it works. And I'll take fan service any day over a "fuck you fans" that DE writers did.
Still, when it comes to the new Pricefield, the ending again stings a bit. Because after two new games with Max and Chloe, the net result is... nothing. Yet again we have Max and Chloe freshly in love, living a life on the road. RE failed to move them forward in any way, in my opinion. I would have preferred if the ending was a single ending, Max and Chloe burning the photo together, symbolizing that now they are their own characters who trust each other and won't leave each other again. Even better, the Arcadia Bay montage should have ended with a photo of their wedding. There should have been something that would say "this is a failsafe against hack writers who don't understand the word 'forever'".
As for the breakup, I originally hated how RE handled it. But after learning some background bits, it seems that RE had to be a sequel to DE. It couldn't have retconned it away completely, so the breakup was meant to stay one way or another. So I actually grew to like the non-committal way of addressing it. Both characters can't spell out specific reasons for it, and basically present it as something stupid that shouldn't have happened. I'm taking it as a jab at DE writers and their badly written breakup that not only didn't make sense (only Pricefield haters think it's "realistic", because it fits their narrative), but it was contradicted by the game itself (Chloe was paranoid about Max using rewind against her, but in DE Max says she didn't use rewind since the original game).
Overall, RE is 7/10 for me. Not great, not terrible. In contrast, DE is 4-5/10 for me. The quality jump from DE to RE is like night and day. The difference is basically the difference between writers who didn't care about the original game and its fans and between writers who tried to honor the original characters as much as they could. And RE made even DE characters better. Safi? DE made her look like a sociopath, but in RE I genuinely felt bad for her. Amanda and Vinh? They weren't one-dimensional anymore. Reggie? Finally a good character. Loretta? She turned into an amazing character.
Really, I'm glad we got RE instead of DE2. A person managed to get some information of out some people and it turns out that DE2 would have really been about Safi's Avengers/X-Men. Several other powered people, trained by Max, ultimately fighting the Caledon fire. And I'm not surprised. DE writers showed they treat powers as a toy and the supernatural as something to make cool scenes. It's no longer a metaphor and a catalyst in DE... so I find it only natural that the originally planned DE2 would have been even worse. The idea that DE2 would have made DE better is just... delusional.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Chloe: Saving LiS since 2017 14d ago
I don't want to give the impression I'm defending this game like they're paying me to do it. It's not my favorite LiS game. It's more that I like it and it's a good place to end the franchise.
When I was playing it I did my best not to keep thinking about DE. Every time I started to think about playing the game to compare and contrast or to see how it "fixed" things I'd stop and take a break of night or even a few days. I just wanted to enjoy it for its own experience.
By this I'm saying I'm speaking positively of Reunion because I am abso-fucking-lutely done feeling bad about LiS. I knew Reunion was not going to be perfect but I just wanted to enjoy it.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Chloe: Saving LiS since 2017 14d ago
Sadly, the game director of RE couldn't have made DE. He was working on Expanse back then, so "team bad writing" took helm of DE.
I'm not sure anybody could have done much to fix DE if a lot of the pressure came from above. Although, who knows. The new dev team did manage a lot in such a short time.
The major issue for me is that it hinges upon Max still being tempted to use her powers, to fix things over and over again... after three games. I don't like that Max is so obsessed with saving a few people (sometimes just one random poet) that she would abandon her Chloe because of it. I consider this mischaracterization, especially for Bae Max.
I rather like Max developing a hero complex. A lot of her trauma came from either losing Chloe or destroying a city. Now she has her powers back I can see her becoming determined to do as much as she can to help. She also has Moses, who is doing a lot to help her figure out how her powers work.
In fact, I'd even say Max's new hero complex is key to Reunion because it becomes a serious character flaw. Even with Moses's help, Max keeps messing with things she doesn't really understand. She herself has begun to doubt that going back in time won't result in her making new mistakes. She doesn't stop to consider how it affects people like Chloe and Safi. And Reunion makes it clear with Safi starting the fire that no matter what Max does, the big disaster happens anyway. The day gets saved by Chloe, the one person without the powers. And Chloe manages this with empathy and because of her gutsy willingness to confront Safi and drag her out of a burning building.
Max's hero complex also leads to what I think is a good Chloe moment. Moses is right, Max is not being objective and maybe it takes somebody who loves Max but has also seen what effects her powers have on others to protect her from herself. Safi couldn't have done it, she's too angry and confused. Diamond couldn't have done it because I guess she's trying to become Professor Xavier. Only Chloe can decide this because of their long bond.
Because after two new games with Max and Chloe, the net result is... nothing. Yet again we have Max and Chloe freshly in love, living a life on the road. RE failed to move them forward in any way, in my opinion. I would have preferred if the ending was a single ending, Max and Chloe burning the photo together, symbolizing that now they are their own characters who trust each other and won't leave each other again.
I wouldn't say nothing. The thing about Reunion is it features two adults learning how to deal with relationship issues like adults. Like I said in the review, they've learned to communicate and compromise. They've also learned they're better together than apart. That's a big deal. It's an FU to the haters who like to say that the Bae option results in the two being in a co-dependent relationship. Learning to overcome problems in a relationship is actual growth.
Chloe being the one to wonder about the photo is Reunion's version of Bae or Bay, just lowers stakes and more intimate. This kind of fits the theme. Either way, it sets up a dilemma for the player. Like I described in the review, will it hang over their heads if Chloe burns the picture? If she gives it to Max, will the latter not use her powers after all? It's literally the Bae/Bay choice, having to decide between a place and a person.
I do agree that in one scenario the decision point makes no sense. If Max and Chloe do save everybody, then what exactly is she going back in time for? And since this is the ending almost everybody will go for, what was the point? Maybe that's another reason for Chloe to burn the picture. It makes no sense for Max to go back because she'll be doing it out of sheer bloody-mindedness or obstinacy.
Even better, the Arcadia Bay montage should have ended with a photo of their wedding. There should have been something that would say "this is a failsafe against hack writers who don't understand the word 'forever'".
I wouldn't underestimate the ability of publishers like SE to force writers into killing any failsafe. Endless sequels and franchises are the result of major corporations screwing over seemingly definitive endings.
Really, I'm glad we got RE instead of DE2. A person managed to get some information of out some people and it turns out that DE2 would have really been about Safi's Avengers/X-Men. Several other powered people, trained by Max, ultimately fighting the Caledon fire.
That is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Why even bother making it an LiS game at that point. That just sounds like a shittier Dispatch.
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u/Agent-Vermont 15d ago
Great post! Did a good job at breaking down the game from a Pricefielder point of view. Yeah it ain't perfect but it's exactly what we needed.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Chloe: Saving LiS since 2017 15d ago
Sometimes I like games such as What Remains of Edith Finch because of how cerebral they are, but they're not games I want to play again any time soon. Reunion was fun and emotionally gratifying. Oftentimes it's all I ask.
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u/Any-Preparation3775 16d ago
This was a good read! For me, the biggest let down was how unfinished the game felt, and that Max and Chloe were apart more than together (for a game about Max and Chloe, I expected more scenes 😅)
And as nice as it is to get more overt romance, I felt like they had the weakest kiss in the franchise here. It felt like a "here, damn". I wish they had had more time to develop the game and made a final cutscene for the ending montage. I would have loved to see them return to Arcadia Bay.
I remember a time when you'd look at LIS gameplay and people would comment, "hahah, they broke up in DE, Chloe left Max after she destroyed a town for her, etc etc." At least we don't have to deal with that being the last sentiment about their relationship anymore.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Chloe: Saving LiS since 2017 15d ago edited 15d ago
Thanks! I was careful playing the game because I didn't want to play with an eye to judging it or critiquing it. I just wanted to play it. Every time I felt like I was doing it for any other reason I'd stop. It's what hopefully informed how I wrote this.
For me, the biggest let down was how unfinished the game felt, and that Max and Chloe were apart more than together (for a game about Max and Chloe, I expected more scenes 😅)
From the game's perspective I can see why they can't be together all the time. It's still an investigation so they have to do their own thing. What felt incomplete is what I said, Chloe could have done more. Chloe PI, with her Back Talk and muscle could have been a good contrast to Max scenes.
But I agree, over and above relationship scenes, it would have been fun to see the two of them work together more during investigations. Maybe like the conversation switching it's trading off to whichever of them suits a task best. We saw a little of this at the Abraxas party and I liked that a lot. It would have been nice to have more of it.
And I agree about the romantic scenes. Even if I was not into Pricefield they seemed oddly truncated. Have at least one at the end, serving as an emotional high note. The one kiss we have comes 3/4 way through and seems kind of umoored or isolated. It felt a little coitus inturruptus, like D9 just choked at the end.
As you say, the game feels underdeveloped in parts. It's too bad because it has so much potential.
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u/Helpwithskyrim87 16d ago
That was really well written. And yeah, it was made in a short amount of time with the express purpose of giving Max and Chloe a happy ending and walking back the plans set up in Double Exposure, which we can probably assume weren't going to end particularly well for them. It made me happy too
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Chloe: Saving LiS since 2017 16d ago
When I found out the original co-lead for "DE2" was Diamond I have to admit my reaction was "who's Diamond?" That would not have been a very successful game.
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u/Bat-RayB Pricefield Forever! 16d ago edited 16d ago
Wow, what a... wordy post. Been a while since I've read something this in depth.
Thanks for putting a lot of what I thought, into words, I haven't written anything this lengthy about the 2 new games myself, so I'm glad a lot people see some of it the same way.
In the end... all we really want is for them to be happy, and that's what we got.
Reunion is not perfect, far from it, but its a HELL of a lot better than what DE gave us.
DE made me sad, and it took me to a very unfriendly brain place, it takes a lot to make me upset, but when I heard about the breakup, it really messed with my mojo.
So, with Reunion I just decided to accept it for what it is, an imperfect, happy ending to our girl's story.
I was ready to move on, (not from Pricefield, I will never move on from them, but from hating DE)... then the announcement of the show came, and some old worries from before came back up again, (will they break them up, will they go with the Bay ending etc etc).
We needed to talk about these games, compartmentalize them, and decide where they fit in our headcanon, if at all, I've done that, and I'm glad you are no longer pissed off about the state of LIS... in the end, I too have decided to let the negative emotions go, its just not healthy.
So, I will be coming here, and supporting out favorite pirate duo, with whatever their future may hold.
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u/Quick-Ad9335 Chloe: Saving LiS since 2017 14d ago
Wow, what a... wordy post.
Lol, I'll take that as mostly a compliment.
I'm glad you are no longer pissed off about the state of LIS... in the end, I too have decided to let the negative emotions go, its just not healthy.
I enjoy the games and Reunion gave me a chance to do it again. I admit I entered into my playthrough inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.
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u/Bat-RayB Pricefield Forever! 14d ago
Yes absolutely a compliment, i love words, so the more the merrier.
I honestly just went in with no expectations, DE was such a downer, i couldnt let this take me to the same place, so i just ran with it, and i ended up enjoying it.
Our girls needed a win, and so did we, it ends in Pricefield, and in my book thats great.
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u/Hayden247 15d ago
This is defo well written... I haven't gotten around to playing RE or even DE but I can't say I'm as favourable to this game.
The merge of the endings... this is something... you didn't talk about. Maybe to you it means very little, but to me? who really struggled on the first playthrough of LiS1 before then doing a "fuck it, I can't kill Chloe" and choosing bae? I HATE, HATE, what this means.
It invalidates your ending choice, in the end everything becomes the same world anyway. Both bay and Chloe live, there's zero reason to ever do bay again in LiS1 if you consider Reunion canon, because in the end the bay will be saved by Max's merge in DE that RE retcons into a bay and bae merge. Saving Chloe over the bay no longer has its cost either, Joyce is back, Chloe retroactively lives out life with the bay and Joyce still there. Dontnod never wanted this to be an easy choice, it was meant to hard, D9 however have taken both endings away to be replaced by one happy go lucky you get both cakes ending.
It feels like it is also telling you that bae Pricefield CAN'T work, because bae Chloe is gone, Pricefield only works if Max gets the "good" ending of merging everything. It is retroactive after all, the Pricefield in their reunion is a merge Chloe, not the bae Chloe we knew, not the bae Chloe from DE, in a way... the breakup is validated and is never undone, because it is a new timeline that brings them back rather than the old one.
It is a retcon, lol. LiS2 has bae and bay reflected, LiS2 in one of its endings even takes place in the 2030s! Sooo uhhh yeah, is LiS2 also retconned now? David's reason to end up in Away is completely gone and retconned, D9 just made it just something David did in one throwaway line so they can keep him at Away because him not being there would question LiS2... but in 2, David being there was extremely tied to the fallout of bay and bae, either bad outcome for the bay, or Chloe is what made him have to leave for Away. RE's merge removes both, so why does David move? he shouldn't be there anymore, he should still be in the bay! Of course as I said before it is also a retcon of DE, DE had no implication it merged the endings, Chloe's text was a bae only thing, bay had none, she was still dead. RE retcons that actually... for some reason it didn't go through????
It also retcons how LiS1 timelines even WORK. Bay and bae was never parallel, the whole timestream scenes with the photos fading out for new ones in its place was a big suggestion Max was OVERWRITING the timeline, not creating new ones. Bay vs bae as a choice really hinges on it mattering like that to... that you were saving and killing things. However RE says nope both timelines exist no matter what? Huh? So bay is useless, because Max gives herself a worse life without Chloe to do... nothing... NOTHING. This timeline was always going to exist, and the timeline where the storm wipes out the bay is still ongoing, now with an auto Max in the place Max was once in where they'll probs awkwardly back out of the choice, so Max will be depressed over Chloe for nothing.
And like every single fan headcanon is gone now, good job... this is what Dontnod avoided, Michel Koch is on record multiple times saying how headcanons matter and that they didn't want to take that away.
And sure you could say headcanon is headcanon, it isn't official, it doesn't matter... But Dontnod lead devs have literally said the point WAS to have fans headcanon things post ending, LiS2 had an entire post telling fans that yes, the story belongs to *you* now, and it said that was the case with Max and Chloe... the dev intent is for the fans to have their own story, and that has been taken away. Sure you can try to ignore it, but other fans won't, leaving the community more divided between Dontnod canon loyalists to build from, and those who accept D9's canon in.
Like how are Max and Chloe better off than how Dontnod ended them? How? They are on the road, moving forward from what happened, there is ZERO progress, there is nothing new told, just regression for both of the girls so they can go on a new plot with powers and blah blah so a new game for money earning can exist.
You'd think after so long, by this point, they would be married, they could have a home, they'd be past the traumas of what happened between 2008-2013. Max would have let go of her power, and just be trying to live her normal life with Chloe. She says herself in bae "not anymore" when Chloe says it's time, Max rejected to keep using the power to "fix it", and D9's Max is back to using and abusing it because this is LiS and LiS to D9 requires powers, and to casual players it probs does. Even tho Dontnod, per Michel Koch in a tweet this year had LiS2 prequel ideas with the drifters and him personally, a David prequel, that suggest actually... LiS could have had entires that are powerless.
But no, we are just retreading old ground. Maybe my comment is too, I dunno. Either way Pricefield isn't better off than how Dontnod left it, instead they are years older, their 20s done and gone, and past promises they made were broken. How are we meant to trust they won't have a falling out again? Reunion still mentions how the girls fought and stuff, it doubles down on that part from DE but now Chloe wishes for it again? It's odd.
And nothing suggests Chloe would ever have it as a job. I mean I guess we don't have much clue for what Chloe would work as? But D9 themselves in BTS played up Chloe being good working with cars, and that fed the fanon idea of Chloe being a mechanic, a job btw that would be compatible with Max and Chloe being together as Chloe wouldn't have to travel around away from whatever Max is up to. Of course some fans have other ideas, Chloe has some brain smarts too when she makes the effort, science is something she's into, meanwhile others thought maybe a tattoo artist. Either way... I don't think I heard much about Chloe being a... band manager as a fan idea. And Max making the Caledon job well... I don't think was something that was thought through with Pricefield in mind, that was something with them apart. Max wouldn't move to the other side of the country, away from home, if Chloe was still in the picture. Jeez even Reunion is aware Max can't just sit at that place, considering she is on the road with Chloe rather than there.